When you go in for a total knee replacement, as I recently have, you will automatically be given antibiotics to help fight infection. This is just part of the process. Knee replacement requires major surgery. The surgeon is going to make an eight inch incision in your. Whenever you are opened up like this the medical team has to be concerned about the risk of infection. Hospitals are full of bacteria, after all.
The antibiotics that are prescribed for you will be administered intravenously during and after the surgery, for a few days. Now we have all heard about antibiotic resistant germs, and this is something that is becoming more of a concern every passing year. Is there anything you can do to help relieve your concerns in this area?
As it turns out, There is a proteolytic enzyme, extracted from the stem of pineapples, that has been reviewed in studies for thirty years, and is now used as a matter of course in some countries around the world, whenever antibiotics are administered.
Bromelain has been found to boost the effectiveness of antibiotics by assisting the body to absorb them more completely and to have an anti-inflammatory effect as well.
In recent studies it has been shown to act as an immunomodulator when administered orally during tumor therapy, by improving the ability of monocytes to act against tumor cells and by inducing the production of cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-a, and different forms of interleukin. In addition, reports on animal experiments have claimed antimetastatic effects, inhibiting the growth and invasiveness of tumor cells.
Bromelain is easily available by mail order and is sold as an aid to digestion and wound healing. It is reasonably priced, being under $20 for a months supply. This is definitely a supplement worth doing some research on. It's use in clinical setting has discovered very few negative indications, though individuals with an allergic reaction to pineapple have broken out into rashes upon ingesting this product in some studies.
Supplementation should always be discussed with your doctor. You do not want to take something that will negatively impact on what your medical team is trying to accomplish. On the other hand, you can't expect your doctor to be up to date on the latest information that is available. The best thing you can do is put in some time on reviewing available information yourself. Then go to your doctors well inn advance of any procedure with the info, from credible sources, and express your desire to use the product or particular therapy.
An excellent source of information is PubMed, a service of the National Library of Medicine.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez
You can type in your search topic, and then review abstracts of studies that have been done and published. If you go to your doctor with the results of a published study, or several studies, then your doctor is going to be much more comfortable considering your request.
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